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Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson (1975, PPE) Entrepreneur and Curator of TED

Chris was born in Pakistan in 1957, studying at the Woodstock School in the Himalayan Mountains in India, before attending Boarding School in Bath. After graduating from St Catz in 1978, Chris began a career in journalism, working on a range of local papers and starting a world news service in the Seychelles. In 1984, inspired by the personal computer revolution, Chris became editor of two of the UK’s earliest computer magazines Personal Computer and Zzap!64, before founding Future Publishing the year after.

The new company initially focused on specialist computer publications but eventually expanded into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design, doubling in size every year for seven years. In 1994, Chris moved built Imagine Media, creator of the popular video game users website IGN, before eventually merging Imagine and Future and taking the combined entity public in London in 1999, under the Future name. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people. This success enabled Chris to create a private nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation, with the hope of finding new ways to tackle tough global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and ideas. In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, which has become a place for thinkers and doers from all fields to share their ideas and their work, capturing imaginations, sparking conversation and encouraging discovery along the way.